


Four Times Steve Made a Political Statement and The One Time He Didn't

by Belldam



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, I'm not Jewish, Jewish Comics Day, Jewish Steve Rogers, everyone is jewish, non-canon compliant: no civil war and everyone is happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belldam/pseuds/Belldam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This was his favorite kind of political action, he thought. The kind where all he did was be himself, and know that eventually, that would be enough to change the world."</p>
<p>A number of appropriate ways to make a political statement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times Steve Made a Political Statement and The One Time He Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by thedamnqueenofhell.tumblr.com for Jewish sensitivity

1.  
Steve had barely been out of the ice for a week before he started getting requests for endorsements and speeches. He threw most of them away without looking - what did he care about this new world when his had been taken from him? - but eventually names started jumping out at him. After New York, he figured he was here to stay and he’d better get to work to make the best of this future. He started saving the invitations and researching the organizations.  


It didn’t take long for him to grow disgusted with what America thought of him. Not to mention America itself. One cause of his disgust had initially jumped out at him as sounding worthwhile to pursue: Focus on the Family.  
What a fucking joke.

At first he couldn’t believe there was an entire organization dedicated to curbing the rights of LGBT people. In part because he didn’t know what LGBT meant. Once he did, he could hardly believe LGBT rights was a public enough issue to garner opposition. He spent a couple nights tearily pondering the life he and Bucky could have had if “LGBT rights” had been this visible. After that, it wasn’t long before he knew it was time to tell America the truth. He emailed every organization he could find asking if they wanted to form a press conference to announce that Steve was bisexual. They sure as hell did.

The press conference came, he told America about his sexuality, and gave a short speech promising to do everything he could to support LGBT rights. He didn’t get the chance to shape the future he was thrown into, he told America, but he was damned grateful for every person who had worked so hard for equality in his absence, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

He woke up the next day to an inbox full of threats, and a text message from Romanoff asking if he wanted her to set up him with a guy she knew in the SHIELD’s research division. He shut down the computer and the phone and spent the day in the gym.

2.  
He was always going to rallies. He’d rally for anything, almost. The feeling of really doing something to benefit his country, of being surrounded by people like him all working together for a common cause, for a future they believed in, was profound and humbling. Some days he thought it was more important than the work he did for SHIELD. Most days, maybe.  


After emailing some coordinators and talking about the best way to act and what his role should be, he finally took his shield to the streets and stood stoically on the edge of a Black Lives Matter rally, staring coldly at the police keeping guard. Reporters flocked to him, which wasn’t anything new - every rally he made it to got a huge publicity boost - but instead of talking to the cameras, he smiled politely and gestured to the right of himself, saying, “I think you meant to ask the Falcon that question.”

3.  
He was always twelve steps behind, it seemed. No one ever talked about abortion back in his day. He knew it existed, but he also knew it would never be an issue for him. Not just because he wasn’t at risk of getting anyone pregnant; Steve knew that as a man he would have been able to just walk away with no consequences. He wouldn’t, after what his mother went through, of course. He would never leave a woman alone with his baby if he could help it, but he knew men who did. He knew girls in high school whose lives were very nearly ruined when they got pregnant too young. What happened to them, he couldn’t say. He was ashamed to admit he’d never thought much about them. But he could imagine. What could have happened to them, however, with different options, he could barely imagine.

He had a lot of catching up to do when he learned that reproductive rights were a hot topic. When he figured it out and heard people talking about overturning Roe v. Wade, he got pissed. He did his research, he donated to Planned Parenthood, and he cleared his schedule and marched down to the local abortion clinic as a volunteer to escort patients safely inside. He talked to them as much as he could, asked about their jobs, their hobbies, their plans. He met some amazing women. And men, actually. And a couple people who told him they were neither. He was learning all the time, and he loved it.

4.  
One of his best nights, he thought, was his night on the Colbert Report. Colbert brought up a recent election cycle soundbite: Donald Drumpf slamming Steve for being un-American and urging him to give up the shield to make America great again. They had a great segment taking Drumpf apart, which honestly, after Germany, Steve took every opportunity to do. He said it on the air and he’d say it again, he saw too many similarities between this election cycle and the years that led to WWII. That was when he announced he was endorsing Bernie Sanders.

The conversation came around, like it always did these days, to Bucky. He’d had Bucky back with him for a couple of years and people were dying to know more about the man, especially since he’d just taken up active work with the Avengers in the past few months, after more than a year and a half of reclusion. Now, after everything that happened, and with Bucky’s permission, he made the announcement: They were getting married. They could do that now, and they wanted to. The audience exploded, and Steve beamed out at them, thinking back to his very first political act in this new world. Back then, just a few years ago, this wasn’t necessarily possible; it wasn’t legal in every state yet. Things seemed to change so fast; he could scarcely believe the world they lived in.

This was his favorite kind of political action, he thought. The kind where all he did was be himself, and know that eventually, that would be enough to change the world.

***  
Steve was sitting on the couch scrolling through Twitter while Sam and Bucky and Wanda fixed dinner. An article came up, another politician saying another damn thing about Steve’s betrayal of American ideals. For being bi, for supporting immigrants, for supporting women, for supporting trans people - for all of it. His mood curdled and his face soured as he pulled up a new tweet to compose a response. Natasha stopped him by jabbing her foot into his side.

“I see that face,” she said. “Don’t work yourself up; I don’t wanna hear about it all night.” She gave him her wry, sideways smile.

He hesitated, then closed the app. “Nah, you’re right. There will always be next time.”

“That’s the spirit, Rogers.”

Wanda called to them that dinner was almost ready, and together with Vision they set the table. They all gathered at the table and Wanda lit the Shabbat candles and recited the blessing. As she did, Steve felt tears well in his eyes, thinking of all the time he had waited for this. The years after Bucky’s death where he spent every Shabbat alone had weighed heavily on him for so long, but now not only was Bucky back, but he had Sam and Nat, the four of them forming their own little family, and the more time he spent with Wanda the more he loved her, the more he thought of her as the daughter he might have had, if his life had gone the way he’d planned. The presence of so many people he loved lifted the weight of his loneliness off his shoulders.

As soon as Wanda finished, Steve wiped his eyes and pulled out his phone. “Real quick,” he said, “real quick, I just want a picture of us.”

“Don’t you ever detach from that thing?” Bucky asked, but Steve ignored him, flipping the camera to selfie mode and turning to position everyone in the frame. “Is this going on twitter? Do you have to put everything on twitter?”

“Would you just smile, Buck?” Steve asked.

“Here, I’ll help.” Nat leaned over and pushed the corners of Bucky’s mouth up with her fingers. He startled at first and looked like he was going to push her away, but then he broke up laughing, which set everyone at the table laughing, and Steve snapped a picture of them, caught in a moment of unguarded joy.

“It is going on twitter,” Steve said, turning the phone to show Bucky. “If you say it’s alright.”

Bucky smiled, looking at the picture, and nodded. “It’s good.”

Steve sent the picture to twitter with a simple “Shabbat Shalom” for the caption, and pocketed the phone. It wasn’t a political statement, really, it was just a picture of his family. Still, he knew what they had at this table was enough to change the world.


End file.
